I want to block ads and trackers on the whole home network. I’ve been using adblockers and trackers for years now; I currently have a Raspberry Pi. I was thinking of setting up Pi-Hole with AdGuard. Any other suggestions are welcome. (I can’t use a custom router, because my ISP doesn’t allow it)
OP if you enjoy a fun weekend project, don’t go with a pi-hole. It literally only takes about 5 minutes. Also I recommend the blocklistproject lists https://blocklistproject.github.io/Lists/
NextDNS or many other DoH services that are out there (I personally recommend Mullvad).
PfSense with PFblockerNG or Pihole
Put their router into modem mode and daisy chain your own router. Look up its labels and find the original manufacture for manuals. Watch out for name changes and mergers. ISPs do not manufacture routers. They buy them from companies, change a few logos and lend them to you.
You can also use the DMZ setting for your router depending on the software on the device from your ISP. DMZ means all traffic is forwarded that hits the device.
either pi-hole or or a filtering dnscrypt server
like blahdns-de, odoh-koki-noads-ams
dnsmasq with a blocklist, like /etc/hosts except you can use wildcards on whole domains. Then you just make your router’s default dns to point to the computer running dnsmasq. https://landchad.net/dnsmasq/
We have an Odroid with AdGuard that’s worked great for many years. We used to use Pihole but had niggles that Meany AdGuard was easier. For us we wanted a completely free solution that we had complete control over.
Controld.com is what i use and it works great.
They have one server that blocks nothing, one server that blocks known malware, one server that blocks known malware and advertising and tracking, and a server that blocks all of that, including social media. And they are all free.
I use Adguard’s public DNS on my router for convenience, no problems at all. In the past I had pi-hole with some lists that in the end, from time to time, broke things.
Pi-hole works great for me, but everyone else on the network that uses Google hates it because the entire first page is ads and they can’t click on them.
I have one SSID with pihole (which I use), and one without. Works pretty well, if you’re ok with a VLAN-aware network.
Yeah, PiHole is great if you live by yourself otherwise the entire household will have it out for you.
Learned that lesson the hard way.
Dunno, I found it pretty easy to set up different rules for different devices.
Yes! PiHole does offer whitelisting profiles for devices however, Apple/IOS devices with their “Private Wi-Fi addresses” make it pain given how the Mac Addresses regularly rotate.
Only Apple the filtering to your MAC addresses.
I install some local adblocker to their devices and they don’t see those ads
For a mobile device / TV, sure.
For a browser on a computer, uBlock or AdNauseum will fix that.
I use Ad-Guard instead of Pihole because the pi-hole software used to be missing some of the DNS features I wanted at the time, and I just stuck with it ever since. I have the main DNS server running on my Unraid Box, and a backup that runs on my HomeAssistant Pi4B.
Make a NextDNS with the settings/features you like and add that as your router’s DNS service. Super simple
This is the lazy option that just works, the free tier is decent but their paid one is so cheap that you can run it for years with the price of a single Rapberry Pi
Either Pi-Hole or there is also AdGuard Home
From what I’ve heard their as good as each other it just comes down on what UI you prefer^^
yep, 100% set yourself up a pihole. You’ll likely need to set it as your DNS via DHCP in your router, or configure it manually on devices that allow that.
I second your idea of going with Pi-Hole. It is purpose-made for this and easy to setup.
Plugging my favorite block lists:
- general browsing https://firebog.net/
- For TV’s https://github.com/hkamran80/blocklists
- For Phones https://github.com/craiu/mobiletrackers
